(The Crimson invites all men in the University to submit signed communications of timely interest. It assumes no responsibility, however, for sentiments expressed under this head and reserves the right to exclude any whose publication would be palpably inappropriate.)

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

It is always surprising, even when things are going well, to see the number of people who know how to run the football team, or who could handle the Athletic Association, better than the ones in charge. The only difference between these two groups is that the football team critics, being old players and coaches, do know something about it.

If the CRIMSON, before attacking the Athletic Association, had really made a study of this wonderful organization and had seen how keenly and carefully it plans for the welfare of every Harvard man, the amount of time and energy given by Mr. Moore and his assistants to avoid mistakes and bad guesses, it is fairly certain that the recent editorial would never have been written. Of course the CRIMSON had the second guess and, like the fellow in Haughton's book who sits complacently in the stands after a play has failed to work, yells "Punk Judgment".

Put these fellows in the coaches shoes or the quarterback's place and ask them to select the play in advance, they are immediately helpless. Nine years of continuous wrestling with these problems ought to have given Fred Moore a fair amount of good judgment and with his twenty-five years of experience in handling crowds for these games, I think we can safely trust even his snap guesses in preference to other people's well-laid plans. If the CRIMSON, in its present wisdom, knows so well how this thing can be done so easily in advance, let them call the turn now for next year's game in Cambridge and tell Mr. Moore how it ought to be done. If they can do that and not have a ton of criticism on their heads, then the famous Terry can step into Bob Fisher's job as coach of the football team right now.

Why not be consistent? If it is so easy to estimate in advance how many tickets will be applied for, and in its reasoning the CRIMSON refers to last year and this, just a difference between an apparently adequate Bowl and an admittedly inadequate Stadium, why didn't the CRIMSON call the turn in advance and thereby serve its readers? And why, with last year's experience behind him--still using the CRIMSON's reasoning--is the undergraduate so unintelligent as not to know that he will be cut from three to two?

Within the history of the Yale Bowl, I personally have taken back 10,000 tickets to yale the day before a big game. Let Mr. Moore in these days err on that side of his planning and there would be confusion worse confounded. "Then indeed the CRIMSON's hint that the coaches and players get all the tickets they want for their friends would be well-founded. Plays are not adopted the day before a game no matter how good they might be and plans for the Yale game with all the printing, instructions for allotment, etc., are not made after the various early games draw unprecedented crowds. The real decisions must be made in the good old summer time. It stands to reason that the Athletic Association is showing in this refunding, ought to convince anyone they know their job: Even in this disagreeable piece of work, the Association shows consideration for the applicant down to the last detail.

The self-appointed committee of Yale graduates who undertook last year to criticise Yale Athletics, pointed to Mr. Moore as an ideal Graduate Treasurer and his organization as an example to follow. Other colleges to have echoed this thought. The Harvard CRIMSON alone calls his tactics makeshift. Let me say that one of the best parts of Harvard's system is the absolute harmony of every piece of the organization. In that chain of strength the splendid work of the Athletic Association is one of the strongest links. I regret, therefore, that even the CRIMSON should be the one to sound a discordant note. I'm quite sure Mr. Moore with his usual courtesy and fair dealing would quite gladly have given the CRIMSON writer all the time he needed to get the real facts, and that even now he will be glad to have the CRIMSON present a plan for next year.

Committees and investigators unstinted with their time and efforts have worked on these problems before, but the final result is the acknowledgment that we have the best and fairest system yet devised. The graduate thinks the undergraduate ought not to come ahead in the allotment; the Senior thinks the Freshman ought to be cut first, and the undergraduate generally, and in this I heartily agree, is that it is his game. The Crew Captain of former days refuses to sit in the wooden stands, yet he gloats over the fact that Crew men are purposely discouraged from playing football. An old 'Varsity shot-putter insists he did so much for Harvard that he should have a preference. And every year there is something in the Alumni Bulletin advocating the adding of new groups to the list--the Endowment Fund men, the families of Harvard boys who died in the war, and a host of other meritorious suggestions, but with all the care and study given by various committees to these suggestion, it is usually agreed to stick to the present plan of allotment.

The CRIMSON seems to think that the entire centre of the field is given to privileged classes. If I remember rightly four sections were allotted on single seat applications. And whatever the article meant, it implies that our centre sections are given over to undue privileges and graft. If the CRIMSON has any suggestion worth while, it had far better make its suggestions to the Athletic Committee than in print where many people may not understand. Mr. Moore is bound by regulations and restrictions made for him by others in authority over him. After his admirable work of all these years, his courteous treatment of many bitter critics, and his extremely conscientious handling of every situation that arises, particularly in the distribution of football tickets, I--formerly in charge of that same situation and knowing whereof I speak--resent any implication whatsoever that anything he plans is makeshift. Mr. Moore himself almost never uses the number of tickets to which he is entitled, allowing for his own personal use a ridiculously small number, and I know of no one who gets tickets just because he "knows" Mr. Moore. Time and time again have I seen him draw from his own allotment of personal tickets prior to a game and give them to a member of the Board of Overseers who hasn't had any, but yet who has done some great work for Harvard. His tickets have gone mostly to Harvard backers and not to personal friends.

If the article in the Crimson is worth anything at all, it ought to come out flat-footed and say what it means. If it means graft, then it ought to be easy to show it or keep still. If it means to cut the privileged classes, who will it cut and how many? Let the CRIMSON show us how many tickets it can save by its change of system. It has only got to save 5000 right now, and it won't save that many if it cuts out entirely the Corporation, the Board of Overseers, the Old Players and the Class of '79 and doesn't allow them to see the game at all. And if it cuts them in half, the Senior for whom the CRIMSON is pleading won't sit one section nearer the playing field, and the graduate will be moved but two rows up or down, in the wooden stands whichever way the drawing happens to fall. All I can say, I wish we had more organizations as efficient and as conscientious as that run by our Graduate Treasurer, a man who never gets any praise, but who in spite of the fact that he gets every kind of a kick under the sun does a 100 percent job.  SIDNEY CURTIS 1905